The United Nations warned on Friday of the rapid melting of the world's glaciers over the past year, without the ability to control the situation as climate change indicators again reach record levels.

The United Nations World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said the past eight years had been the warmest on record, while concentrations of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide, peaked.

"Antarctica's sea ice has fallen to an all-time low," FAO said in its annual climate report, and sea levels have recorded a record high, rising at an average of 4.62 millimetres per year between 2013 and 2022, double the rate between 1993 and 2002.

Record temperatures have been recorded in the oceans, where about 90 percent of the heat trapped on Earth is caused by greenhouse gases.

The 2015 Paris climate agreement stipulates that signatories will limit climate warming to 1 degrees Celsius compared to pre-industrial rates in the mid-nineteenth century, and to 5.<> degrees Celsius if possible.


The WMO report said the average global temperature in 2022 was 1.15 degrees Celsius above average for the years 1850-1900.

Global temperatures have hit record levels over the past eight years, despite the impact of cooling caused by the La Niña climate phenomenon, which spanned nearly half of that period.

The report said greenhouse gas concentrations reached new maximum levels in 2021. The concentration of carbon dioxide reached 415.7 parts per million globally, 149% of the pre-industrial level (1750), while the concentration of methane reached 262% and nitrous oxide 124%.

Data suggests that these concentration levels continued to increase in 2022.


Constant danger

The world's reference glaciers, those with long-term data, experienced an average thickness loss of more than 1.3 metres between October 2021 and October 2022, a loss well above the average over the past decade. The cumulative loss of ice thickness since 1970 has been approximately 30 meters.

In Europe, the Alps broke records for glacier melting due to a combination of factors including a lack of snowfall during the winter, a desert dust wave in March 2022, and heatwaves between May and early September.

FAO chief Petteri Taalas told AFP: "We have already lost in terms of melting glaciers, because we have such a high concentration of carbon dioxide."

In the Swiss Alps, "last summer we lost 6.2 percent of the glacier, the highest since records began," he said.

"This is dangerous," Taalas said, explaining that the disappearance of glaciers would limit freshwater supplies for humans and agriculture, and would also harm transport routes if rivers became less navigable.

"This kind of thing will cause great risks in the future," he said, adding: "A lot of mountain glaciers will disappear, and the glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland will continue to shrink in the long term, unless we develop a way to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere."


A glimmer of hope

Despite the bad news in the report, Taalas said there was some reason for optimism, noting that means to combat climate change have become affordable, with green energy sources becoming cheaper than fossil fuels, and the world developing methods to improve climate efficiency.

Taalas said the planet is no longer heading for 5 to 2014 degrees Celsius warming as predicted in 2, but is now on track for 5.3 to <> degrees Celsius.

"At best, we will still be able to reach a warming threshold of 1.5°C, which would be better for the well-being of humanity, the biosphere and the global economy," the WMO chief said.

He pointed out that 32 countries have reduced their emissions and their economies are still growing, adding that "there is no longer an automatic link between economic growth and increased emissions."

According to Taalas, world leaders are "all talking about climate change as a serious problem, and countries are starting to act," unlike a decade ago.